⚾ MLB shuts down

Grab a taxi... or a taco. Singapore-based Grab started as a ride-hailing platform, but it’s now one of Asia's largest super apps. Think: Uber, DoorDash, Venmo, Expedia, Netflix, and Amazon... all in one app. The decade-old company has 187M users in eight countries — nearly double Uber's users. Yesterday, the super app became a super SPAC.

• Grab went public on the Nasdaq through a SPAC merger that valued it at nearly $40B — the largest SPAC deal on record. But shares closed down 21% on day one.
• The #s: Grab's loss grew to nearly $1B last quarter and sales fell 9% as Covid surges in Southeast Asia hit its ride-hail biz.

Can't color-coordinate your home screen... when you have just one app. Grab users can manage their entire lives in-app: from ordering groceries to booking resort vacays, to applying for loans and health insurance, and even streaming rom-coms.

• "Everything apps" like Grab are super popular in Asia, with Chinese powerhouses like WeChat, Alipay, and Alibaba touting billions of users. That’s partly because slower broadband connections discourage people from clogging their phone with multiple apps.
• American companies have been dipping into super-app territory. Think: Uber doing food delivery and Facebook integrating payments and shopping. But they’re way less super.

Three strikes… and you’re (locked) out. Major League Baseball owners locked out players yesterday after failing to reach a deal with the players’ union — its first shutdown in 27 years. When workers strike, they refuse to work; when employers lock out, they refuse to let employees work. Now all 30 teams are shut down, and no trades are allowed until a deal is reached.

• Players want a higher salary minimum (it’s currently $571K) and more trade flexibility. Average MLB salaries fell last year, while MLB franchise values jumped.
• Owners say players’ demands are too high. MLB teams spent $2B on free agents this year, including a record deal for one pitcher that pays $43M per season.
• It’s the offseason, so games haven’t been cancelled — yet. But the dispute’s expected to last weeks and could cut into the season.

Not the first labor curveball... MLB has had nine labor stoppages, including four lockouts. They haven’t usually interfered with regular-season games, but the 1994 strike resulted in the cancelation of 900 games — including the World Series. And MLB attendance didn’t rebound for more than a decade.

• Higher stakes: Today, the average MLB team is worth $1.9B — 10X more than during the 1994 strike — so an in-season lockdown would be way costlier.

• Restrict: Biden announced plans to tighten testing and mask requirements for travelers entering the US in an effort to combat Omicron.
• Disarm: The FTC sued to block Nvidia’s $40B purchase of supplier Arm, saying the deal would give the chip behemoth too much control over competitors’ chips.
• Over: Capital One became the largest US bank to ditch overdraft fees, which often hurt vulnerable consumers but brought in $14B in revenue for the banking industry last year.
• Feast: Kroger shares popped 11% yesterday after the grocery chain said it expected larger holiday meals at home to continue boosting grocery sales.
• Ice: Snowflake shares soared 15% after the cloud-based data-management startup said quarterly sales more than doubled from last year.
• Variant: GlaxoSmithKline said its Covid-19 antibody treatment is likely effective against the Omicron variant, while rival Regeneron said its treatment is less effective.

• November jobs report
• Earnings expected from: Big Lots and Dole

Authors of this Snacks own shares of: Square, Apple, Netflix, Amazon, and Uber

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